Participating organisations: Children’s Institute (CI – Lead), CIE, SCUK, TAI.
Introduction
A Network of Care is an approach and model that seeks to raise awareness and a sense of responsibility within various stakeholder groups of a local community to identify vulnerable children and respond to their needs. The intervention is to engage and encourage the community in responding to their children by assisting them identifying their own resources and referral routes so that the children remain on the path to improved wellness.
Utilising the “Champions for Children Handbook” developed by the University of Cape Town’s Children’s Institute (a product of much research) in guiding this intervention process the immediate and potential benefit of their tool to our partners is evident. Through using components of the CI Handbook and recording the process and experience this track contributes to CI further refine the tool.
The foundations of this track are:
- There are gaps in the ways in which children needing help are identified and supported
- Many children, once identified as vulnerable, are lost again by the current systems of intervention
- Involving more stakeholders in the local communities increases the success rate of identifying areas of vulnerability and the existence of barriers to wellness
- Partnerships increase the potential to protect child rights
- Referral systems and resources can be owned by local community members
- Sufficient and successful solutions to the OVC crisis are dependent on local community member ownership of the response
Steps taken
- 3 workshops have been run for the participating organisations to get acquainted with the concept of Networks of Care, to be capacitated to form Networks of Care in their community site, and to feedback, review and deepen their implementation
- Partners have read and used components of the Handbook during their implementation, and contributed feedback to CI
- Each participating partner has been working on the implementation of this project, reporting to, and receiving guidance from, CI on an ongoing basis
Progress towards program objectives (September 2008)
It must be noted that this is a large and complex Track. The implementation of which has involved organisations understanding, integrating and transmitting a new approach to their work. Facilitators need then to be closely mentored in the implementation of this approach at the community level. The scale of community intervention requires the understanding and buy-in of high-level leaders, and then a volunteer action group of community members.
There is evidence of organisational re-strategising according to the rigorous needs of the programme, and numerous meetings held with both facilitators and community members, as our partner organisations engage with their proposed interventions. It is apparent that 6 months is a very short reporting time period for this track i.e. a development project of this scale.
At this stage
We have not yet received any data that provides real evidence of learning and change, in the community sites, towards the protection of child rights. Each of the implementing partners have, however, built significant relations with community members, have held meetings and workshops with a small number of representatives from all the participating communities/schools, and have had training workshops with facilitators to pass on the approach and methodology.
The pressure is on for more intensive work at each of the sites that includes a greater number of people present and a greater cross-section of the community involved. At the third workshop the methodology of the proposed intervention was used to engage the participants in the content that they need to engage the communities/schools in i.e. the workshop facilitation mirrored what the participants would be doing next in their intervention. Various practical steps were explored, and ideas and tools were shared that could be used to prompt these steps.
The involvement of facilitators and young people in this workshop generated an enthusiasm and momentum in the teams, and gave those that will be hands-on in the communities first hand experience of the method of facilitation that they are being asked to emulate.
Expected outputs
- Significant contributions to the final version of the CI Handbook
- Tools for including various stakeholders and broader community members in children’s wellness matters
- Increased involvement and participation of local community members and structures
- More awareness and ownership of children’s well-being leading to more children being cared for
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